Intro

Bloodlines

You start the game at the bottom of a stairwell which leads to Dracula’s throne room. At the top of the ominous staircase, there are a number of candles to hit to get some hearts and a Cross. However if you take your time there is an exploit to make the battle a little easier (and if you're playing on the Xbox 360 there is an achievement to not get hit during this battle).

First, at the top of the stairs there is a brick wall just above your head, and there is a hidden passage here. Hit the wall above your head (the bricks on the left) to reveal a red button, hit the button again with your whip and a staircase will come down. If you go all the way up the stairs (to a new screen) there are items that Richter will not be able to use (so it’s kind of pointless to go all the way up).

Second this allows the candles down the hidden stairwell to respawn so you have the ability now to get 100 or 99 hearts before the battle with Dracula. Go back and forth between these two screens hitting the candles to get their goodies.

Before entering this battle you have two choices in sub weapons (yes, sub-weapons are important here):

Holy Water - This will allow rain to fall from the sky (by tapping Y or Triangle on the controller) and allowing everything on screen to be hit. Or it can be thrown at your enemies' feet (not very useful for the first part of the battle because you can only damage Dracula’s head.

Cross - It will throw Richter into the middle of the screen while large crosses will encircle him, damaging anything that gets in there way. The up attack is a projectile cross being flung out and at a certain distance comes back. Timing the distance and damage of the enemy you can get two hits for one item, being very effective.

Now that you have 100 hearts, (and possibly a cross) it’s time to take it to the big man himself, Dracula. To do this just keep walking forward and you will witness some of the worst voice acting in video game history. After the dialogue Dracula will start his assault.

Let it be known that this demon from hell will, in a shower of light, disappear and reappear wherever he wants. Don’t worry, he is pretty easy to kill (he is the first enemy in the game after all).

Dracula’s Attacks

He opens his cape and 3 fireballs (all within Richter’s height) will fly at you. To avoid this attack, crouch and hit the attack button.

He opens his cape again and two large flaming orbs will fly out. The top fireball will attack first. To avoid these, crouch then time a jump just after the first orb attacks subsequently jumping over the second orb (This does take a bit of practice).

While dodging these attacks you must hit Dracula in the face. As Dracula appears you only have a second or two before he makes his move. So jump, throw a cross (up on the d-pad and the attack button) and then get ready to either hit the 3 fireballs or do the crouch jump maneuver to dodge flaming orbs.

Dracula turns into a monster of sorts, and takes up about 1/3 of the screen so you will need to avoid him all together. The trick here is to use the triangle or Y attack for your sub-weapon, (this is why you needed all of those hearts). Hit triangle and as soon as one attack is over, hit the button again. Repeat until he is dead.

If you are about to die, a young girl name Maria will run into the battle and make you invincible.